You Cannot Benefit By The Wrongdoing Of Others – A Basic Moral Principle That Was Violated By Allowing Federal Funding For So-Called “Limited” Stem Cell Research – Gary L. Morella

President Bush’s decision to allow taxpayer-funded research to proceed on 60 existing stem cell lines is disturbing. It is a basic moral principle that one cannot benefit by the wrongdoing of others.  Courts have long held that to allow government to benefit from a wrongful act provides an unhealthy incentive to persist in such acts.

You cannot distance yourself from previous immoral acts that have resulted in the killing of embryonic human beings, doing a “Pontius Pilate” by saying that “nothing is wrong, they were already dead, and therefore I’m blameless.” The end does not justify the means. You do not kill people to save people.

The President, by agreeing to underwrite such research, embraced the logic of those who advocate such research.  The issue will no longer be whether such research ought to be permitted, but rather how many cell lines are enough, giving comfort and encouragement to those who will seek to expand embryonic research beyond that envisioned by him.

Where does it end? If 60 stem cell lines are morally acceptable, then why not more?  Moreover, the President did not even address the issue of unrestrained private sector research.  If killing embryos is unacceptable in publicly funded institutions, how can it be moral when carried out in private laboratories?

As pointed out by David Stevens, MD, Executive Director of the Christian Medical Association, “Such a view of human embryos flouts ethical principles contained in the Nuremberg Code and in the National Institutes of Health's ‘Guidelines for the Conduct of Research Involving Human Subjects’.  Both clearly express the fundamental principle governing human experimentation that ‘no experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur.” A longstanding medical principle, “do no harm”, has been breached. We’re no longer talking about a slippery slope; we’ve completely stumbled and are falling headfirst into a disastrous pit where the next expendable utility, as determined by the state, could very well be the reflection in our mirrors.